May 15, 2008

Weddings are always a sure fire way to lasso audiences during sweeps. Hollywood can now add perfectly legal gay California weddings (or should I say LGBT weddings) to their script checklist, along with tried and true ferry explosions and character deaths.

A few hours ago, the California Supreme Court struck down the ban on gay marriage and yes, there's dancing in the street here in San Francisco.

Other winning television marriages could include Luke and Noah, the young, angsty gay couple who have captured audience imagination on the daytime soap, As The World Turns.

ABC Network already took the big plunge anyway, last Sunday. During the season finale of ABC’s Brothers & Sisters gay characters Kevin Walker (Matthew Rhys) and Scotty Wandell (Luke Macfarlane) tied the knot. The ceremony was the first of its kind between series regular characters on U.S. broadcast network television.

In the hands of talented writers, UST is fun. On rare occasions, it's a delight. Mostly, however, writers use the device to taunt viewers. Networks and/or the writers play the highly manipulative, two- steps forward one-step back game, often over the course of several seasons. UST is a cheap and easy technique for getting viewers to cling desperately week-after-week-after-week

But the networks and showrunners are playing with fire, too. When a series RUSTs-out - due to RELENTLESS unresolved sexual tension - once loyal audiences can quickly turn into furious web mobs. And their word of mouse can be scathing and potentially damaging - which is pretty much what's happening at the moment to Grey's Anatomy.

December 23, 2007

Tornadoes, ferry explosions, weddings, fire, death - these are moth eaten plot devices time-honored television “events." Companion pieces to the "events" are the clamorous broadcast net promos that promise much but deliver little.